IMG College hires exec to bundle, sell radio inventory nationally

IMG College has brought in a veteran Westwood One sales executive to spearhead its first national radio sales campaign.

Eddie Quagliariello comes to IMG College with 23 years of experience in national sales. As vice president of national radio sales, Quagliariello will be based in New York and report to Andrew Judelson, IMG College’s senior vice president of national sales.

IMG College owns the multimedia rights, including the radio network rights, to 79 college properties. Those networks produce 35,000 hours of programming annually that’s distributed across 2,200 stations nationally, as well as school websites. That programming includes live games, coaches’ call-in shows, and pregame and postgame shows.

Sales have been handled locally by each school’s property in the past, IMG College said. Quagliariello will direct the company’s first effort to bundle that radio inventory and sell it nationally.

Each school property will continue to sell locally as well. It’s uncertain just how much of the ad inventory will go to national sales.

“IMG is looking to develop assets in college football and basketball, and it’s something where they already have the infrastructure in place,” Quagliariello said. “My job is to sell on a national level and to create a national advertising platform from this inventory we have.”

A national radio sales division is not unlike the national sponsorship sales unit IMG College created in 2011. Since then, IMG College has signed the likes of Lowe’s, Hershey, UPS, Hyundai, Keurig and MillerCoors to national sponsorship deals.

While radio inventory is often part of those national sponsorship deals, having a dedicated national radio sales executive will position IMG College for more radio-centric deals, Judelson said. Creating these types of national radio advertising deals is nothing new to Quagliariello. At Westwood One, he sold inventory from the NCAA, NFL, Olympics, Masters and other properties.

With the national ad network Quagliariello can create from IMG College’s 79 schools, he can deliver “frequency and tonnage,” he said. Judelson added that Quagliariello’s experience “developing new business through packaging radio inventory” will help IMG College create its first national radio sales platform.